LAST HURRAH : First off, i'd like to ask you about your new album "Hurting Business". Turntable, scratches, samples and different style of vocals, we hear many new approaches on the record. and lots of soul and R&B. It was a very nice surprise to me. was there any theme or concept for the album? CHUCK PROPHET : I guess it was just a way of keeping myself entertained. The record turned out less introspective somehow and I hoped that it would. Definitely a reaction to the previous record which was like a play. Five people on their feet playing simultaneously -- which was itself a reaction to the record that came before it where I spent way too much time in the control room pole vaulting over mouse turds. I was ready for the spontaneous combustion of people playing a song together for the first time and eager to cut em open and dig around their insides. And put em back together. It started off with breakbeats and a four track and some chords and words and little melodies dragged through the collaborative process of a few of my difficult and talented friends and co conspiritors, namely klipshcutz aka Kurt Lipschutz and then POW!#%%#!   just like that -- it brought me all this! LH : Is soul music the key element to the new record or is it all sub-conscious stuff? CP : Yeah, I guess so. The record is full of sub-conscious spew filtered and served up greasy over drums and guitars and Farfisa organs and whatever else the song might have called for, or whoever happened to show up the day we cut it. And I'd been soaking up all kinds of 60's soul records for a long time and always come back to those records. Easily my favorite period of American music. LH : Your record reminds me a lot of Beck and Jon Spencer records. Do you listen to their records? CP : Oh yeah sure, those guys make great records. LH : What have you been listening lately? CP : I've been listening to all kinds of mix tapes the last couple of years. 90 minutes of cross faded genius from Rowmanowski to Eddy Def and the Hemp Lords. Eddy Def made a mind boggling re-mix of Bohemian Rhapsody that has to be heard to be believed. Also, Charles Wright, Charlie and Inez Foxx, James Brown, the Cut Chemist and DJ shadow live at the Justice League. All kinds of junk. These Mix tapes offer some kind of distant cousins to the Nuggets collections except out of a soul bag and opposed to 60's punk/garage rock what-have-you. Sometimes the cassette label might say: "white label unknown" and the record sounds like the Jackson Five high on crystal Meth jamming in a closet in Detroit. Monster stuff!! LH : Your sense and attitude towards the music gets actually younger as you get older. . . or as you release more records. Means you'realways searching for a new sound, trying something new? CP : I've go now explanation for it. Hip hop is really inspired and all about turning things inside out. Making it "fresh." I've always loved old records. I've always gravitated toward the source. If anything, when I was younger I think perhaps I wanted more to be taken seriously as a songwriter and over time have come to appreciate the modern primitives among us. That's the music that I always return to. My song heros are guys like Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, Jack Clement, Smokey Robinson. You get the idea... LH : What does trends mean to you? CP : Trends? There are no more trends are there? Not like Punk, where everyone threw out their old records. If anything ever comes along to make us do that I will be real surprised. LH : How did the deal with hightone come about? CP : When it came to find a home in the US, Hightone were the first to raise theirs hand. HT head honcho Larry Slovin rang me up one Sunday and flattered the hell out of me by being so excited about the record. It was a done deal. LH : It seems that your music is more popular in europe than the US. Do you wish you could do what you do in europe in the states? CP : Europe vs.the U.S.A.?? I do what I do -- wherever I'm doing it. I don't get to choose who responds to it. Oddly enough, we've played more dates in the states this year than all the years before combined. And it's been a real kick and more than a little rewarding. LH : Do you think there is or was really an alt-country movement? CP : There will always be a place for traditional sounds and shapes and world views. And always a new way into them. People might tire of steel guitars and fiddles and want to hear Moog synth's again. Doesn't mean they won't return to country. I'm rediscovering my love for country music all the time. I'd love to write a song cycle album ala Jeanie C Riley's Harper Valley PTA. There's certainly enough material out there to write an updated version. In the immortal words of Jim Thompson, there are a million ways to write a story, but only one plot: Things are never what they seem. I'm sure alot has happened down in Harper Valley since the 60's! I can see it now: starring Fiona Appalachia on CD and DVD featuring bonus tracks in the form of download-able short films directed by Fionas boyfriend. What do ya think? Sell the idea and I'll split the money with ya. LH : How's gogo market doing? still playing around the town? How does it differ from your own works? CP : First off, I can't sing nearly as good as Stephanie Finch. She can bring grown men to tears. Men want her to have their babies and all they want from me is my guitar picks. Secondly, there are two turntables. And beyond that, it's sort of our fantasy of de-constructed Brill Building songwriting served over southern fried boogaloos, with the two turntables taking place of the strings and horns. LH : How is the music scene in San Francisco these days? CP : I consider it less of a scene and more of a ghetto. Or a clusterfuck if you will. DO NOT tell your friends to move here. The city has changed A LOT. And is becoming less and less affordable for the fringe element. I came here to wave my freak flag high. It's always been a liberal town -- encouraging what some might call "alternative." before they had a name for it. I stand corrected. Counter Culture, that's what they called it! Anyway... It's like I always say, do you think they would have put up with Jerry Garcia in lower California? No Sir. Jim Morrison is the leather clad sex God of LC. We must foster and encourage the freaks. And we must arm ourselves and prepare to fend off the twenty-something e-traders, who when they grow up, will want to throw us all out. Maybe Tucson will be the next Bohemian boom town? Or maybe Louisville? Tokyo? Nah, don't think so. LH : Do you have special feeling towards the 70s, suburbian and the music from that time? CP : Oh yes, definitely. It informs all my work. It's where I come from. (PHOTO : SAKI HONMA) << ISSUE 002 CONTENTS

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